Kneeling to receive Holy Communion at St. Saviour's Church in Dublin one Sunday, it suddenly dawns on Magda Finnan how she can earn God's blessing. She vows to kill Father Doran. A cleaner at the St. Cosmo Care Home for the Elderly, the nineteen-year old remains haunted by her upbringing in a Magdalene orphanage. Among her memories of discipline, prescription and the ever-present fear of damnation, one image in particular defies the passage of time: her best friend, Lucy, falling down the deep stairwell to her death. However, as the ghosts of the past refuse to lie quiet, a very different revelation awaits her. Ultimately, she will have to realize that everything she most believes in might not be God's truth after all, and that she will have faith in herself to survive.